


guardian

by sweetwatersong



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Danger, Drabble, Hurt, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-22 23:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16607483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetwatersong/pseuds/sweetwatersong
Summary: She wants to keep her safe. That's what you do for those you love, isn't it?





	guardian

“No. No, you don't get to pull that card. You know what my worst fear is?” Laura crosses her arms as she leans away from the back of the couch, slipping one hand into the crooked of her elbow. It’s body language that screams so loudly Natasha can almost hear the coming words. “I imagine a lot of things, Nat. You dying, Clint dying, either of you getting hurt - you make sure to tell me just enough that I don't know what kind of trouble you get into. I just patch you up and take care of you after it's all over. But one of my worst fears, the kind of thing that keeps me up at night, is imagining that you come home.”

Laura’s hands are not white-knuckled, her voice isn’t stilted. But she is still laying her heart open as cleanly a surgeon might, her chin lifted and her eyes steady. “You come home and I’m out somewhere, living my life, taking advantage of the peace you've fought to protect. I get home-" and her voice cracks on the word, "to see you’ve dragged yourself back, bleeding and hurt, and _I wasn’t here_. I wasn’t here to fix you. So that’s how I find you, there on the doorstep, when it’s too late for me to do anything. When it’s too late for you.

“That’s why I stay home at night when you get assignments in the country. In case you need help, and I can give it. I’m not afraid of you showing up looking for help, Natasha. I’m afraid that when you really need to, you won’t.”

-

Natasha thinks of that conversation years later, staunching the wound across her abdomen as Clint tells her in a tense voice over the comm to _get somewhere it’s safe_ , half a continent away and unable to say the words over SHIELD’s radios that they’re both thinking. _Go to the farm._

They’ve changed in the years since she sat on a couch and listened to one lover spill her deepest fear. Their family has moved from a house in Albany to a farmhouse in Iowa, a retreat where she would be safe from the cartel chasing her - at least for a little while.

 _Get to a safehouse,_ Clint is saying in her ear, and she breathes through the pain of two broken ribs and rests her head against the wall, giving no reply. Because Laura is there, with deft hands and an ER-worthy first aid kit, and so is Cooper, and little Lila, three months old and so full of life.

Laura’s worst fear may have once been finding Natasha dying when she could have helped. Now, now…

Natasha presses the compress tighter while blood continues to seep over her fingernails, and does not move.


End file.
